


materfamilias

by cryptic_dragon



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: AU: Family bonds, Crimson Days 2021: Vow, Exo issues, Gen, I Made Myself Cry, No beta we die like guardians, OC Guardians (mentioned only), Spider is an irredeemable douchebag, the nature of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29357109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptic_dragon/pseuds/cryptic_dragon
Summary: One delicate handprint glows a vivid purple color just over his heart and sometimes, when he hears the faint whispers which occasionally drift across his mind out in the Dreaming City, his hand subconsciously rubs at his chest. There are others at his shoulders, much more faint and difficult to see — Glint tells him they were likely to have been placed there by his actual birth parents long ago.The print which intrigues him most, however, is a clear handprint across his cheek.
Relationships: Female Guardian & The Crow (Destiny)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	materfamilias

  
De Zu never had a mother. 

Sometimes she wonders what being a child would have been like. As a fully inorganic Exo, she's never experienced the idea of true family beyond her batchmates, the brothers and sister she knows only from long-inaccessible memory fragments unlocked by Psion Flayer tech down in the ruins of a Clovis Bray facility on Mars. She recognizes the prints of their hands upon her chassis, counting them each time she stands before the mirror in her small Tower apartment, pulling on her undersuit and allowing her Ghost to help her put on all the pieces of cushioned gear which sit beneath the outer plating and decorations she wears on a daily basis. There are four of them all along her shoulders, arms, and back which faintly glow the same blues and oranges as she herself has been painted, she supposes they all had been painted the same overall color scheme. She wonders if that's the reason she has streaks of orange across her facial plating, if that's how they all chose to differentiate themselves from one another visually. There is another handprint she recognizes as well, this one in faint periwinkle hue on her arm where the Commander had first touched her. She, in turn, had placed her own hand in the brilliant shadow of hundreds if not thousands of other handprints on his own arm, all in the same place as they greeted one another on that first day she had come to the Tower. Zavala had indeed become a sort of father figure over the years she'd spent under his command. 

And yet, there is one handprint she does not recognize. It is slightly smaller than the rest, slate gray, and she can tell from the natural wrinkles in its palm and on its fingers that it belonged to someone organic. It lies on her collarbone, from the direction of the fingers she can tell that whomever had left it — or will leave it — had approached her from the front. 

Van had tried placing his hand over it once, but his was too large. Katje, too, had placed his hand in the dimly glowing mark at her collarbone, but his hand was too small. Neither of them had borne any handprints resembling her own, either, and in the end she was glad that they were not actual family. The direction their collective relationship had taken was far more romantic than was acceptable for that of family, and she had no regrets toward the different form their love had taken — she might have died for them after all, but the choice would not have been as sure and certain as if she had been faced with dying for the Commander, or her siblings. 

Perhaps the print had belonged to one of her creators. She can imagine them looking down at her as she lies on some cold, metal slab as they slot in a card here, solder a connection there. She sometimes wonders if that hand belonged to the one who programmed her, trained her, named her. Whether they taught her to speak and to understand the world. Whether she managed to outlive them. Whether they mourned her if she hadn't. 

She sometimes wonders whether there's any more Flayer tech out there that can help her remember this, too.

Crow never had a mother. 

This isn't entirely true. He had neither sprung from the earth after having been sown there like seed in a field, nor had he been wished into existence by a dragon. He knows that as an Awoken (which was what Glint had called his race of gray-blue-skinned people) he had been birthed by a woman and so he technically _did_ in fact have an actual mother someplace, somewhen, but he can't remember her. He can't remember anything about his prior existence, like all other Lightbearers before him. For all intents and purposes he's an orphan, bereft of home and family, his only possessions the clothing on his back and the funerary drape which had covered his corpse out in the Dreaming City. 

And yet, his flesh is marked with phantom touches all the same. Glint tells him that the glowing handprints mark the connections between family members, people who will live and die for one another, bonded by blood or combat. Lightbearers are always rezzed with the same prints which had marked them at death — even if they can't recall who they'd come from, those handprints had belonged to people who influenced them during their first life, who molded them into whatever the Traveler looked for in a Lightbearer. You don't lose the people who shape your very being, whether you remember them or not. _"They represent hope,"_ Glint had told him one lonely evening as they sat huddled in the shelter of a rusting storage container out in the EDZ. Crow was looking up at the stars, Glint was looking up at him. _"Those people loved you and believed in you, as I do. You'll make them proud someday, I know you will."_

_"And you?"_

_"You make me proud every day."_

He enjoys the constant companionship of his Ghost, but he can't stop himself from wondering. One delicate handprint glows a vivid purple color just over his heart and sometimes, when he hears the faint whispers which occasionally drift across his mind out in the Dreaming City, his hand subconsciously rubs at his chest. There are others at his shoulders, much more faint and difficult to see — Glint tells him they were likely to have appeared for his actual birth parents, long ago.

The print which intrigues him most, however, is a clear handprint across his cheek. He can see it best in dim lighting, blue crossed with faint sparks of orange. The palm of it is oddly angular and the joints altogether regular in structure, he'd asked Glint whether the hand had been encased in a glove but the little Ghost had admitted he didn't know _everything_ about these familial markings, only that they had been present on every person who had ever lived and thus every Guardian ever resurrected. He'd promised to look into it for them whenever they managed to make it to the Last City, but that goal was a long way off. 

He sometimes looks at himself and wonders whether any of them are still alive. He wonders whether they mourned him when he died. 

He sometimes wonders whether they still miss him. 

Crow is yet a newborn Light when he makes his way to the Tangled Shore and is picked up by the Spider's henchmen, hauled in to stand before the great hulking Eliksni crime boss. He is thin and wary but eager to be useful somehow in return for guidance, direction, without which he's just another piece of Reef garbage caught in the tide of Sol. The cruelties inflicted upon him by his fellow Lightbearers have sapped him of hope, he is but a broken thing which had formerly been a dead thing, but Spider's eyes narrow keenly and his words drip with honeyed concern as he considers the foundling at his feet. "Perhaps we can help one another," he says, folding his hands over his expansive belly as he sits back in his seat. Crow looks up at him, his expression completely blank — he does not recognize the famed Shore overlord, if his memory had been complete he surely would have — and Spider's eyes glitter briefly with a dreadful hunger. 

They speak for a while (or, rather, Spider speaks to _him_ ) and they come to an agreement: In return for whatever scant supplies and shelter he requires, the newly dubbed 'Crow' will be trained to play the part of the Spider's Lightborn enforcer, his right-hand man. In reality he's little more than another curio for the Spider's massive collection and with the appearance of the Cryptoliths so soon after his arrival upon the Tangled Shore, he quickly finds himself tasked with their removal rather than any petty acts of 'enforcement', but for all intents and purposes he belongs to Spider, heart and soul — especially when Glint's shell is rigged to explode as soon as he makes one mistake too many, or whenever the Spider finds their continued existence too cumbersome.

Freedom, however painful it had been, is a luxury he can no longer afford. Not when it would come at the cost of his beloved Ghost. 

Spider is not known for being easy on the things — or the people — he owns, and Crow's sudden upbringing is harsh and unforgiving. Mistakes are punished swiftly and mercilessly. He notes that the first time Spider strikes him for speaking out of turn, there is no glowing scuff hiding beneath the bruise Glint is quick to heal and, for that, he is silently thankful.

His instincts as a marksman are undeniable, but his skill as a Lightbearer is questionable at best. He's no seasoned warrior by any means, but the lesser Eliksni eventually come to accept his presence among them (even if it's mainly to peg him as the butt of their jokes) and they see to his needs sometimes when the Spider will not. Most of them have incurred his wrath at some point or another, after all, and they know what it's like to be the low man on the totem pole. Some few even have the temerity to pity him, knowing how powerful he could be if only he were free and able to join his own kind. 

But he is not free, his instantly recognizable face with its glowing handprint makes that dream an impossibility, and one false move will see his Ghost popped like a living balloon, so he settles in and forces himself to be quiet and obedient and content with his lot. For whatever horrible thing he had done before he died, surely he deserves everything he's being given. 

When Crow is tasked with finding the Warlock Osiris but brings back The Guardian in his stead, the Spider seems pleased enough at first, laughing at some private joke and burbling with glee at the idea of hashing out a deal with them. Crow slips, however, carelessly entering their conversation only to be firmly rebuked by his Baron and as soon as the other Lightbearer is dismissed by the august bulk perched upon his floating throne, the very _instant_ they are alone Spider gestures sharply and Crow is shoved to the ground, pinned into immobility by a knee across his neck. He sees three shock-bladed spears in the room pointed squarely at him, their bearers almost daring him to fight back against the bodyguard Vandal who has him pinned. He knows he will be killed if he tries. Spider's elite bodyguards are quite nearly as ruthless and cruel as the Spider himself, they enjoy testing the limits of his Ghost's ability to restore him. There's a running pool on which of them will finally leave the first permanent scar upon his smooth, gray-blue flesh.

"Do us both a favor and keep your excuses to yourself next time," growls the Spider, and the Vandal leering down at him lashes out with one closed fist which impacts Crow across the cheekbone. He grunts, but gives the false Baron no other satisfaction, not even as he is again struck in forceful reminder of Spider's number one standing order: He _must_ keep his presence on the Shore hidden from prying eyes. "You'll strike proper fear into my enemies only if they don't know who or what to expect," rumbles the gigantic Eliksni, the sounds spilling forth from behind his rebreather wet and wheezing. "You got lucky this time, _very_ lucky, but do _not_ be so careless as to reveal yourself to anyone else! Are we clear?"

"Yes, Baron," he replies in a humble wheeze of his own, and after a flippant movement of Spider's hand he feels the knee lifted from his throat. He catches his breath, pushes himself to his feet, then bows stiffly, respectfully.

"Very good," purrs Spider, satisfied for the moment. "Now, get yourself cleaned up and meet with that Guardian. Rid my Shore of the Cryptoliths and chase down that Celebrant. Either they go... or you do."

He's shaken, but not cowed. With quick step he hurries back to his quarters — little more than a storage closet fashioned into a workspace with a cot thrown in for good measure — expecting to have a few minutes to compose himself, but to his dismay the Guardian is already there, waiting for him as he opens the door. Their Ghost, pink shell glittering in the dim light of the Spider's underground compound, bobs at Crow in greeting. "Hello there," he says, speaking for the Guardian as he had done before. "Spider told us to meet you here. Sorry for the intrusion, we didn't realize you'd be held up elsewhere."

"It's quite all right," he replies, turning to his worktable and adjusting his hooded cloak to hide himself from their prying eyes, more out of habit than anything else at this point. They both already know what he looks like and, on order of the Spider, they are to be allies. Under these circumstances, surely this Guardian won't try to kill him as others have done. 

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he begins to explain the Cryptoliths, their connection to crazed, bloodthirsty enemies known only as 'Wrathborn', and the presence of the monster in the Shrine of Oryx known only as the High Celebrant. "That creature is leading the way for some far more powerful Hive being, if you can believe it," he says, shaking his head carefully.

"We can," says the Ghost simply. 

Crow inclines his head in question, eyeing them curiously. Glint had informed him of this Guardian's impressive reputation, of course, and the regularity with which they wound up spearheading any major Guardian operations, but she — the curve of her hip and the construction of her armor are definitely more on the feminine side — says nothing, and neither does her Ghost offer any explanation. Instead, she simply gestures toward the device currently filling his worktable. "What is that?" asks her Ghost, drawing nearer to examine the thing. He scans it briefly. "It's steeped in Hive magic."

"It's a lure for Wrathborn," says Crow. "By swapping out the type of charges attached to it," he demonstrates by unscrewing one of the canisters from its underside, holding it out to her, "we can change the type of prey it attracts. If we were after an Eliksni target, we would bait it with ether, for example." He picks up another charge canister sitting nearby, this one glowing a sickly green color. Its light reflects off of his hand. "For a Hive target, organic matter tainted with soulfire seems to do the trick, and it doesn't take much — they can smell it from any distance and they come running."

"Interesting," the Ghost murmurs, his Guardian leaning in to take a closer look. She glances at him curiously, then back down at the canister in her hands, and he is careful to keep his face turned to hide his injury. "You made this yourself? You figured this out without outside help?" 

"I've been dealing with these Cryptoliths under the Spider's direction for a few months now."

"And you've been alone all this time?" 

"Not really. Sometimes the Spider will send out one of his other associates to assist or to inspect my work. The Eliksni are resourceful, and I've learned much from them in my short time as a Lightbearer."

Something seems to pass between the Guardian and her Ghost. "May we examine this?"

"By all means," he shrugs, setting lure and charge back onto the table and offering her a stool. She ignores it, picking up the lure and hefting it thoughtfully. Stepping back to give the pair space, he sits down heavily onto the small cot nearby, leaning back against the rusting metal wall behind it. He closes his eyes, it's been quite a long day but the work to stifle the growth of the Cryptoliths and the spread of the Wrathborn never ends. Between that and the ongoing hunt for the High Celebrant he doesn't get much time to relax, so he must take the opportunity whenever he finds it. 

He hears them fiddling with the device, the thump and clank of parts on the table. "We can refine this," says the Ghost, his conversation peculiarly one-sided. From what few reports Glint had managed to glean from the Spider's information network about The Guardian he knew that she often had her Ghost speak for her when alone, but whether this was personal affectation or weakness he did not know for sure. Perhaps she would be comfortable enough to speak to him personally someday. "We have those samples from the Dreaming City, don't you remember? Yes, I know they're in that cabinet, I'll make sure to retrieve them when we visit the Tower next — gross, don't touch me after you've touched that lure! I'll reek of Hive for days," he complains, and Crow cracks an eye open to watch her as she shakes with silent laughter and her Ghost twirls his pins at her, floating just out of reach. 

_They're not so different from us, are they?_ Glint asks smugly, peeking out from his hiding place within the folds of Crow's cloak. It's customary for him to hide himself while they're in the presence of an unknown, especially an unknown Guardian — just in case one of them gets the idea to kill him for the apparent crime of having raised Crow as a Lightbearer. 

_Perhaps not_ , he thinks, laying a hand palm-up atop his knee. Glint settles into it, his lone blue eye dancing with joy at the thought of them perhaps having met a friendly Guardian this time, or at least one who won't kill him on sight. With the pair still distracted by the lure, Crow pushes back his hood slightly. _Do you mind?_ he asks silently.

_Oh dear,_ Glint sighs, floating upward to take a better look at his swollen cheek. _That looks terrible. Let me just—_

Before either of them can do anything else the Guardian is there, standing over him faster than he can blink. "What are you—?!" is all he's able to squeak as her hand flashes out and she grabs him firmly by the jaw. He struggles briefly against her grip, striking at her neck, clutching futilely at her arm but she is a veritable mountain of woman, immovable, inexorable. 

Realizing he can no more stop her than he can stop the sun _he_ stops, closes his eyes, and exhales slowly as he waits for her to kill him. Will she snap his neck? Will she crush his skull between her hands? Will she thrust one of her bladed knees into his chest? He is all too aware of the power and physical strength inherent in even the weakest of these Titan-class Guardians, he just hopes she'll kill him more quickly than the last one had. Maybe she'll take the lure and leave, maybe she'll clear out the Cryptoliths herself and—

"Don't hurt him!" Glint cries, shying away from them all in a burst of transmat particulate. His pins flare briefly as he reappears across the room. "Please," he begs, "he doesn't remember—"

She releases him. His eyes open wide in shock when he realizes he's still alive, still breathing — hyperventilating, even — and she hasn't killed him. In fact, he's completely unhurt. The phantom touch of her hand tingles at his uninjured cheek and when she reaches up, popping the seals of her helmet and setting it aside, he realizes what stopped her, he knows the blue-orange handprint he sees in the mirror whenever he can stand to look at himself can only belong to this woman, her facial plating a vivid cerulean splashed with orange in flourescent hue. She, in turn, is craning her neck to stare down at her own collarbone, the place he had first touched when he briefly tried to defend himself, and then her optics slowly drag themselves upward to stare at his face. 

Glint has told him of these Golden Age constructs imbued with human minds and souls, he's seen a few before and of course they've both heard rumors about some doings out on Europa during his time spent on the Tangled Shore. He's still stunned into silence as he watches her body's fluidly human movement, paired with such unapologetically robotic aesthetics. Had she not removed her helmet, he probably never would have realized she was Exo. He cannot read her facial expression, there are too many glowing lights and shifting plates whose meaning he doesn't yet recognize, but he wonders if she's feeling the same nauseating mixture of dread and excitement at having found someone with whom she shares a bond so strong it will mark them both for eternity. Can she even experience nausea? Does she even ingest things she can possibly throw up afterward?

"You didn't have that bruise back in the Spider's meeting-room. Who did that to you?" she asks — no, _demands_ of him, the pink-purple focus of her glowing optic sensors boring into his face. There is a light in her throat which pulses the same color as her optics as she speaks, her voice is pitched carefully low and quiet so as not to be overheard by any lurking toadies out in the hall. The only other sounds in the room are the hiss and rumble of ether piping throughout the Spider's compound and of course, his own haggard breathing. "Answer me," she demands again. "Did _he_ do it?" Her optics narrow dangerously.

"N-no," Glint offers worriedly, still floating apart from the rest of them. "Usually Spider has one of his associates—"

"Usually?!" The light in her throat hardens into a brilliant, angry red, the ruff of feathers at her collar bristles as her shoulders stiffen beneath ornamented pauldrons and her hands curl themselves into fists. Glint disappears again in the face of this sudden display of barely controlled fury. "You mean this has happened before? It happens _often_?!"

He opens his mouth to reply, but he still can't think straight enough to form a proper response. He knows he should shift the blame onto his own clumsiness — not that she would believe him if he claimed he'd fallen down a flight of stairs or bashed his face into a low-hanging pipe, but still. "It's you," is all he can force himself to say in a murmur of wonder. His head is spinning.

"Her?" Glint is at his side again, looking between the two of them in confusion. Crow turns to fix him with a flat stare and his Ghost finally gasps, fluttering his pins excitedly as he puts it all together. "Oh my stars, that print is _hers_?" he chirps, staring at the woman hopefully. 

"Me?" she blinks at him, absently rubbing the place he'd first touched her, and then her optics widen and she gasps as she, too, truly realizes what's happened. She nearly falls over as she leans out to take a good look at the uninjured side of his face. 

"You," says her Ghost, turning slowly to stare at each Lightbearer in turn, just as Glint had done, and Crow can't tell which of them he's addressing. 

Crow and the Guardian stare at one another for a few long moments, and then another sound rises to fill the room over the sound of hissing ether and straining pipes. It begins as a slight cough, then an odd, choking hiccup which shortly becomes a broken chortle, and finally it broadens into a full-on laugh — slightly crazed, but a laugh nonetheless. "Sunny, this isn't— would you _stop_?" the woman bleats in exasperation at her now hysterically laughing Ghost, her throat lighting pink with embarrassment as he bobs and stutters through the air between them, but she can't really help herself either and soon joins him in his mirth. To her credit she _does_ try to control herself, but the apparent absurdity of their situation is too great and she's forced to manually disable her vocoder for a bit in order to fully disrupt her humor subroutines. 

As for Crow, he huffs a short chuckle of his own in relief and his smile is shy as she sits down beside him, the little cot creaking beneath her added weight. His sight blurs as she loops a hesitant arm about his thin shoulders but when he doesn't pull away, he finds himself pulled tightly into her chestplate and her chin is resting on his head and he can't stop the tears spilling down his cheeks, one marred with an awful shiner, the other merely _shining_. For once in his entire reborn life, something has finally gone right instead of horribly wrong and maybe, just _maybe_ there really _is_ a light at the end of this dark, howling tunnel in which he's found himself trapped. 

Their Ghosts have begun conferring near the doorway in hushed tones. Crow has already been healed by Glint and his tears have long since dried, but he remains silent and pensive. She knows he's full of questions but she refrains from offering answers, instead simply allowing him the time he needs to compose his thoughts. 

She considers the feelings of protectiveness blooming deep within her. They came up sudden and violent and now that they're rooted into her heart she recognizes it as a form of love, but it's different from the love she holds for Van or Katje or anyone else she's loved physically. It's also different from the love she holds for her siblings, the sensation of which she's managed to piece together from her fractured memories, or the love she holds for the Commander. The entire situation between herself and this 'Crow' is so twisted and tangled as to be almost beyond hope of repair, but she also knows beyond any shadow of doubt that it is _her_ responsibility to take up the frayed strands, to carefully pick them apart and weave this bewildered man into something newer, something stronger, something _more_ so that he can live and be free to fly on his own.

Her optics dim slightly as her focus turns fully inward for a moment. She'd been warned by Osiris already that Crow doesn't remember his previous life nor has anyone informed him of what had happened before. She wonders how he'll eventually handle the knowledge of the sins which brought him into this new life: Uldren's campaign of genocide and destruction against his own people and humanity at large, the murder she herself committed to ensure he would never try it again. Will the irony of it drive him mad? Will he come to resent her, to reject her? Will he understand why it had all panned out this way? Clearly his Ghost had been searching for him for far longer than he'd been dead, will he be able to put his faith into the Traveler and its mysterious workings? Will he agree to join the endless struggle to protect humanity from the encroaching Darkness which has already swallowed half the Sol system?

"What's your name?" 

His simple question brings her train of thought to a halt, and her optics brighten as she glances down at him. The longest journey begins with a single step. "De Zu-7," she replies. 

"It's nice to meet you."

De Zu never had a mother, but she's not ignorant of motherhood as a concept. She understands responsibility, passing on knowledge between generations, watching out for others, and the value of a life. She understands the importance of being there for someone when they need you. She understands what is required of her here and now in this private moment of discovery deep within the bowels of the Spider's lair. With the knowledge of what she's done and what her actions have wrought weighing more heavily upon her than ever before, she silently vows to _be_ the mother she's never had to the newborn Lightbearer currently lying curled up into her side like a child. 

She hopes someday he'll be able to forgive her for it.   


**Author's Note:**

> In honor of the cancelled Crimson Days 2021, a tale of non-romantic love.  
>   
> This is not my official headcanon, merely an alternate 'what if' sort of thing, but in this universe, markings shaped like glowing handprints appear on a person's flesh upon one's transition into maturity. They correspond to bonds between members of family whether by birth, adoption, or something combat-related. Parental markings usually appear upon the shoulders or upper back, sibling prints on the torso, and child prints over the heart, but there are always rare exceptions brought on by important differences in these familial relationships which may cause a print to appear in a 'non-standard' place. There is a distinct feeling when a print is touched by its corresponding family member, and the prints are visible both before and after a connection is made between the two individuals.  
>   
> Combat-bonded family marks are usually located somewhere on the forearm, and in fact natural leaders are often recognized by the sheer number of marks emblazoned upon their arms.  
>   
> It is incredibly rare, but not unheard of, to see a family mark appear on one's head, neck, or face. Uldren was a very prominent example of this once-in-a-generation occurrence and it's part of why Crow is so instantly recognizable no matter how hard he tries to hide himself, he can't just wear goggles or dye his hair or wear makeup to change his appearance. He either wears a full helmet or he's recognized and killed on sight.  
>   
> 


End file.
